BBC introducing DRM by the back door

[ciphergoth]

BoingBoing: BBC wants to put DRM on the TV Brits are forced to pay for

My letter:

Sir: with regard to this proposal:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/enquiry/ofcom_bbc.pdf

This appears to be an attempt to contravene the spirit of the requirement that BBC broadcasts be free-to-air. The spirit of this requirement is only intact while fully-featured open source PVR software such as MythTV, which I use, remains possible, something that this agreement would prevent.

It can hardly be a surprise that content owners would prefer that the BBC find some way around this requirement, but if the BBC are to be released from it, it must at the very least be done explicitly, above board, after a public debate of a decent length. This end-run is unacceptable.

Comments

[lovingboth]

Mine:

As the letter from Greg Bensberg states, "it is a requirement of the multiplex and Ofcom’s PS-DTPS licences .. that content on this multiplex is broadcast free to air (i.e. unencrypted)."

This is for very good reasons, including that BBC free-to-air content is paid for by a compulsory licence fee and UK citizens should be free to view it however they chose without having to find a manufacturer willing, prepared and able to agree to restrictive licence conditions about how it can be viewed.

If some content rights holders are unwilling to allow their material to be broadcast in such a manner, they have the choice not to sell the material to free-to-air broadcasters. However experience in the US shows that, having failed to get an equivalent 'broadcast flag' included in transmissions, the rights holders are still happy to have their material broadcast on their national networks.

I would urge that Ofcom change its mind about amending the licence and instead restates the principle that all such content is genuinely free-to-air.

I would also say that this is an extremely short timescale for a consultation on such an important matter. Just because BBC Free-to-View wishes to have a rapid 'yes' does not mean that less than two weeks should be allocated to a debate on it.

[babysimon]

It's worth noting that Freesat already does this (broadcast flag on an unencrypted stream, "enforced" by requiring manufacturers to agree to it in return for Huffman tables to uncompress EPG data). MythTV reverse-engineered the EPG compression fairly quickly and does not implement the broadcast flag ;)

AFAICS there's no legal mechanism to go after people who reverse engineer the compression used, nor do the BBC / Freesat show any sign of doing this.

I don't view this as being a huge deal, assuming it's the same, which from my reading of the Ofcom letter it is. Far more worrying is the BBC's second request (real DRM) but it sounds like Ofcom slapped that down.

(In fact, there's even a spec for Freeview PVRs called "Freeview+" which limits how fast you can skip adverts. AFAICS this is enforced by the branding - to put the logo on your box you have to enforce the limits!)

[lovingboth]

Oddly, that's not mentioned on that page. What other delights doesn't it talk about?

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify with other people who've read this... this does appear to apply to HD (DVB-T2) transmissions which will require new hardware of some description and not the current SD (DVB-T) transmissions? And therefore these restrictions apply to future hardware not current hardware?

I feel like I'm being a bit thick. I'm still not in favour of these flags and have sent the e-mail, but I'm seeing a lot of people getting angsty that their current freeview box will suddenly stop working and yet if this applies to DVB-T2 this will not be the case, or rather if it is the case it will not be because of some flags in the system?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

No, you're right - I got the wrong end of the stick at first.

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

It took me a few reads until I twigged the 2 and HD and remembered reading a very boring article (no really, it didn't even have any pictures) on the structure of DVB-T2. I think the problem is, looking at a lot of the sites that are encouraging write-in letters on this matter is that they don't explain what the BBC are proposing properly. Therefore when we in turn read them we get confused also. So stick grabbing was inevitable.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

so... for the lazy... what _does_ it mean?

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

DVB-T2 is the next type of transmission. The one that will bring Hi Definition content to freeview and the like. It's encoded differently and will require new hardware (most likely with HDMI outputs). DVB-T is what is currently used for freeview.

The BBC are talking about applying DRM to this new standard. All the saber-rattling about making existing freeview hardware is kinda misplaced. DRM will not make it obsolete. A change to the digital broadcasting standard to support hi-definition content will.

Have I just made things better or worse?

[hughe.livejournal.com]

oh ok, no that makes it much clearer.

But obviously there is still the issue at heart that the BBC wants to be allowed to apply DRM to their "free" transmissions funder by the tv tax.

I thought you(plural) might have been saying that this wasn't the case any more, but it is.

right?

[adq.livejournal.com]

The main question asks about the BBC "protecting" their electronic programme guide (EPG) by the simple method of compressing it, but only disclosing the decompression method to manufacturers who agree to honour the content management information contained within.

Effectively the A/V content would be in the clear, but the EPG would be supposedly unavailable (I would reckon for about a week until the huffman tables are reverse engineered). You would obviously also be able to get the TV schedule from another source such as the radio times (which is exactly why my recording system does already).

It sounds like another manufacturer also raised the question of applying a more conventional protection method based on the DVB CSA, whereby the video/audio content itself is encrypted, and they were dutifully asking about it. Ofcom refused this; I would guess the BBC expected that.

So, for DRM, its about as light a touch as you can get since the actual content is in the clear, and the EPG protction is easily broken or circumvented. It is *still* DRM though, which is a huge change from the current entirely standards based open DVB-T transmission system.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Have sent an email.